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Famous Devour Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Devour poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous devour poems. These examples illustrate what a famous devour poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Aiken, Conrad
...fathomable worlds that lie
between the apple and the eye,
these are the only words we learn to say.
Each morning we devour the unknown. Each day
we find, and take, and spill, or spend, or lose,
a sunflower splendor of which none knows the source.
This cornucopia of air! This very heaven
of simple day! We do not know, can never know,
the alphabet to find us entrance there.
So, in the street, we stand and stare,
to greet a friend, and shake his hand,
yet know hi...Read more of this...



by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...in the fields, 
And wallowed in the gardens of the King. 
And ever and anon the wolf would steal 
The children and devour, but now and then, 
Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat 
To human sucklings; and the children, housed 
In her foul den, there at their meat would growl, 
And mock their foster mother on four feet, 
Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men, 
Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran 
Groaned for the Roman legions here again, 
...Read more of this...

by Emerson, Ralph Waldo
...es unbar,
Minions of the Morning Star.
In his prowess he exults,
And the multitude insults.
His impatient looks devour
Oft the humble and the poor,
And, seeing his eye glare,
They drop their few pale flowers
Gathered with hope to please
Along the mountain towers,
Lose courage, and despair.
He will never be gainsaid,
Pitiless, will not be stayed.
His hot tyranny
Burns up every other tie;
Therefore comes an hour from Jove
Which his ruthless will defies,
And the ...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...n the threatening flag set forth 
 Of Marquis Swantibore, the monster he 
 Who in the wood tied up his wife, to be 
 Devoured by wolves, together with the bull 
 Of which with jealousy his heart was full. 
 
 Even when woman took the place of heir 
 The tower of Corbus claimed the supper there; 
 'Twas law—the woman trembled, but must dare. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE MARCHIONESS MAHAUD. 
 
 Niece of the Marquis—John the Striker named— 
 Mahaud to-day the marquisate has cla...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...aming a liberty that still went back, 
Whose numerous gorge could swallow in an hour 
That island, which the sea cannot devour: 
Then our Amphion issued out and sings, 
And once he struck, and twice, the powerful strings. 

The Commonwealth then first together came, 
And each one entered in the willing frame; 
All other matter yields, and may be ruled; 
But who the minds of stubborn men can build? 
No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought, 
Nor with such labour from its ...Read more of this...



by Marvell, Andrew
...robbed those jewels of the crown; 
Our merchantmen, lest they be burned, we drown. 
So when the fire did not enough devour, 
The houses were demolished near the Tower. 
Those ships that yearly from their teeming hole 
Unloaded here the birth of either Pole-- 
Furs from the north and silver from the west, 
Wines from the south, and spices from the east; 
From Gambo gold, and from the Ganges gems-- 
Take a short voyage underneath the Thames, 
Once a deep river, now with...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...the way 
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light. 
Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire, 
Outrageous to devour, immures us round 
Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant, 
Barred over us, prohibit all egress. 
These passed, if any pass, the void profound 
Of unessential Night receives him next, 
Wide-gaping, and with utter loss of being 
Threatens him, plunged in that abortive gulf. 
If thence he scape, into whatever world, 
Or unknown region, what rema...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...nfinite despair? 
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; 
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep 
Still threatening to devour me opens wide, 
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven. 
O, then, at last relent: Is there no place 
Left for repentance, none for pardon left? 
None left but by submission; and that word 
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame 
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced 
With other promises and other vaunts 
Than to submit, boasting I could ...Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...ed first; on each beast next, and fish, and fowl; 
No homely morsels! and, whatever thing 
The sithe of Time mows down, devour unspared; 
Till I, in Man residing, through the race, 
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect; 
And season him thy last and sweetest prey. 
This said, they both betook them several ways, 
Both to destroy, or unimmortal make 
All kinds, and for destruction to mature 
Sooner or later; which the Almighty seeing, 
From his transcendent se...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...which with her mighty power 
Tam'd all the world, hath tam'd herself at last, 
The prey of time, which all things doth devour. 
Rome now of Rome is th' only funeral, 
And only Rome of Rome hath victory; 
Ne ought save Tyber hastening to his fall 
Remains of all: O world's inconstancy. 
That which is firm doth flit and fall away, 
And that is flitting, doth abide and stay. 


4 

She, whose high top above the stars did soar, 
One foot on Thetis, th' other on the M...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...he arms and back of my chair; 
If I try to escape, they surround me; 
They seem to be everywhere. 

They almost devour me with kisses, 
Their arms about me entwine, 
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine! 

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, 
Because you have scaled the wall, 
Such an old mustache as I am 
Is not a match for you all! 

I have you fast in my fortress, 
And will not let you depart, 
But put you down into the ...Read more of this...

by Bridges, Robert Seymour
...d,
And o'er his lamplit desk in solitude
Deems that he sitteth in the Muses' bower:
And some the flames of earthly love devour,
Who have taken no kiss of Nature, nor renew'd
In the world's wilderness with heavenly food
The sickly body of their perishing power. 

So none of all our company, I boast,
But now would mock my penning, could they see
How down the right it maps a jagged coast;
Seeing they hold the manlier praise to be
Strong hand and will, and the heart best when...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...es hoppesteres,  *burnt
The hunter strangled with the wilde bears:
The sow freting* the child right in the cradle; *devouring 
The cook scalded, for all his longe ladle.
Nor was forgot, *by th'infortune of Mart* *through the misfortune
The carter overridden with his cart; of war*
Under the wheel full low he lay adown.
There were also of Mars' division,
The armourer, the bowyer*, and the smith, *maker of bows
That forgeth sharp swordes on his stith*. *anvil...Read more of this...

by Scott, Sir Walter
...As the dark caverns of the deep
          Suck the wild whirlpool in,
     So did the deep and darksome pass
     Devour the battle's mingled mass;
     None linger now upon the plain
     Save those who ne'er shall fight again.
     XIX.

     'Now westward rolls the battle's din,
     That deep and doubling pass within.—
     Minstrel, away! the work of fate
     Is bearing on; its issue wait,
     Where the rude Trosachs' dread defile
     Opens on Katrine'...Read more of this...

by Kipling, Rudyard
...and ye can;
But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man!
If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride;
Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the head and the hide.
The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must eat where it lies;
And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or he dies.
The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do what he will;
But, till he has given permissio...Read more of this...

by Dryden, John
...the formidable cripple great? 
Yet should thy crimes succeed, should lawless power 
Compass those ends thy greedy hopes devour, 
Thy canting friends thy mortal foes would be, 
Thy god and theirs will never long agree; 
For thine, if thou hast any, must be one 
That lets the world and human kind alone; 
A jolly god that passes hours too well 
To promise Heaven or threaten us with Hell, 
That unconcerned can at rebellion sit 
And wink at crimes he did himself commit. 
A tyr...Read more of this...

by Chaucer, Geoffrey
...holy Church's blood that is descended.
Therefore he would his holy blood honour
Though that he holy Churche should devour.

Great soken* hath this miller, out of doubt, *toll taken for grinding
With wheat and malt, of all the land about;
And namely* there was a great college *especially
Men call the Soler Hall at Cantebrege,
There was their wheat and eke their malt y-ground.
And on a day it happed in a stound*, *suddenly
Sick lay the manciple* of a malady, *st...Read more of this...

by Schiller, Friedrich von
...Presses the sycophant base, tearing the friend from the friend.
Treason on innocence leers, with looks that seek to devour,
And the fell slanderer's tooth kills with its poisonous bite.
In the dishonored bosom, thought is now venal, and love, too,
Scatters abroad to the winds, feelings once god-like and free.
All thy holy symbols, O truth, deceit has adopted,
And has e'en dared to pollute Nature's own voices so fair,
That the craving heart in the tumult of gladnes...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...e with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
...Read more of this...

by Giovanni, Nikki
...i hope their eyes fall out  and a million maggots that had made up their brains  crawl from the empty holes and devour the flesh  that covered the evil that passed itself off as a person  that i probably tried  to love      ...Read more of this...

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